The present invention relates to techniques for analyzing a body of data. More specifically, the invention relates to techniques that analyze an image by operating on regions of the image.
Mahoney, J. V., Image Chunking: Defining Spatial Building Blocks for Scene Analysis, Dep't. of Elec. Eng. and Comp. Sci., M.I.T., 1987 ("the Mahoney thesis"), describes an image chunk as a subset of an image that can act as a unit in the course of spatial analysis. As described at page 11, parallel preprocessing constructs a variety of simple chunks uniformly over a visual array. On the basis of these chunks, subsequent serial processes rapidly locate relevant scene components and rapidly assemble detailed descriptions of them. Section 1.4, pages 20-22, describes parallel connectivity algorithms based on global parallel models and based on simple local models.